this present series of papers,
my dear friends and brother Snobs, I hardly know--but for a whole mortal
year have we been together, prattling, and abusing the human race; and
were we to live for a hundred years more, I believe there is plenty of
subject for conversation in the enormous theme of Snobs.

The national mind is awakened to the subject. Letters pour in every
day, conveying marks of sympathy; directing the attention of the Snob
of England to races of Snobs yet undescribed. 'Where are your Theatrical
Snobs; your Commercial Snobs; your Medical and Chirurgical Snobs; your
Official Snobs; your Legal Snobs; your Artistical Snobs; your Musical
Snobs; your Sporting Snobs?' write my esteemed correspondents. 'Surely
you are not going to miss the Cambridge Chancellor election, and omit
showing up your Don Snobs, who are coming, cap in hand, to a young
Prince of six-and-twenty, and to implore him to be the chief of their
renowned University?' writes a friend who seals with the signet of the
Cam and Isis Club. 'Pray, pray,' cries another, 'now the Operas are
opening, give us a lecture about Omnibus Snobs.' Indeed, I should like
to write a chapter about the Snobbish Dons very much, and another about
the Snobbish Dandies. Of my dear Theatrical Snobs I think with a pang;
and I can hardly break away from some Snobbish artists, with whom I have
long, long intended to have a palaver.

But what's the use of delaying? When these were done there would be
fresh Snobs to pourtray. The labour is endless. No single man could
complete it. Here are but fifty-two bricks--and a pyramid to build. It
is best to stop. As Jones always quits the room as soon as he has said
his good thing,--as Cincinnatus and General Washington both retired into
private life in the height of their popularity,--as Prince Albert,
when he laid the first stone of the Exchange, left the bricklayers to
complete that edifice and went home to his royal dinner,--as the poet
Bunn comes forward at the end of the season, and with feelings too
tumultuous to describe, blesses his KYIND friends over the footlights:
so, friends, in the flush of conquest and the splendour of victory, amid
the shouts and the plaudits of a people--triumphant yet modest--the Snob
of England bids ye farewell.

But only for a season. Not for ever. No, no. There is one celebrated
author whom I admire very much--who has been taking leave of the public
any time these ten years in his prefaces, and al